News & Views item - July 2010

 

 

Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations(CAPA) Releases Its Key Priorities for Election 2010. (July 30, 2010)

 

The key priorities for Australia’s 280,000+ postgraduate students in the lead up to the 2010 Federal Election are contained in a densely worded six-page assessment. The report is based on the efforts of the Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations (CAPA) to support improvements and reforms for postgraduates for the past more than 30 years, in addition to current challenges

 

Below is the introduction to CAPA's statement:

 

Postgraduates comprise 27% of the total student population, and 35% of international students studying in Australia. Postgraduates support close to 60% of Australia’s R&D effort and are said to support as much as 70% of universities’ overall research output. They are also the ambassadors for Australian education internationally, where current students and recent graduates build and maintain vital research links overseas. They also support as much as 50% of the teaching capacity in universities, an important consideration if ambitious targets for the expansion of participation in higher education are to be met.

 

The 2010 Federal Election represents a pivotal time for postgraduates: a vital phase in the cycle of review and reform that has characterised Australian higher education since 2007. While postgraduates have won significant improvements under the current Government, a range of further reforms are either partly implemented or yet to be addressed.

 

There have been at least 20 major public reviews and inquiries relevant to higher education and research since 2007, yielding over 300 major findings and recommendations. The current Federal Government has responded to less than a third of these to date. While some reforms have already been implemented, the number of initiatives that the current Government has actually committed to is still relatively small.

 

The next Federal Government will have significant scope to implement lasting reforms to higher education and research. They will have the opportunity to draw on the host of reviews conducted between 2007 and 2010 to position Australia’s higher education system as a leader internationally. For the incoming Government to turn its back on this course however would be catastrophic. Higher education and research in Australia may be on the brink of benefiting from some world-leading reforms, but if this course is averted it may well be on the brink of collapse. Australia cannot afford the efforts invested over the last three years to go to waste: implementation of key reforms in Australian higher education and research must be at the top of the priority list for the incoming Federal Government in 2010.

 

Postgraduates have won some important reforms during the current term of Government, but more needs to be done. The challenges for the next Federal Government include: